The CIA’s Secret Journal Articles Are Gossipy, Snarky, and No Longer Classified

The CIA has declassified a trove of articles from its in-house journal, Studies in Intelligence. Ostensibly a semi-academic review of spycraft, Studies emerges in the pieces, which date from the 1970s to the 2000s, as so much more, at turns mocking excessive secrecy and bad writing, dishing on problematic affairs, and bragging about press manipulation.

The recent document dump was prompted by a lawsuit from a former CIA employee, Jeffrey Scudder, who has said that his attempt to have these articles released via a Freedom of Information Act request destroyed his career. He was accused of mishandling classified information in making the request, and was fired. The CIA has now released 249 of the 419 documents Scudder requested, according to Secrecy News, which first reported the document release today.

Update: The CIA has previously declassified other articles from Studies in Intelligence, mostly book reviews and essays, which are available here. Some of the documents that the CIA included here had also been published by the National Security Archive and National Security Counselors.

Top photo: Terry Ashe/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images

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